# ! Missing $inserted (normal text in Bmatrix) \begin{Bmatrix}\text{Of what nacion.}\\text{Of what countrée.}\\text{Of what auncetours.}\\text{Of what parentes.}\end{Bmatrix}  Apparently, I'm supposed to insert$ but I don't know where.

• Why are you using a Bmatrix environment to typeset what looks to be pure text? – Mico Jun 1 '14 at 14:59
• I need a double set of big curly braces with 3 or 4 lines of text in between. – Guillaume Coatalen Jun 1 '14 at 15:13
• The error is that you have \\text instead of \\ \text – egreg Jun 1 '14 at 15:19

use

$\begin{Bmatrix} \text{Of what nacion.} \\ \text{Of what countrée.} \\ \text{Of what auncetours.} \\ \text{Of what parentes.} \end{Bmatrix}$


or $...$

I think it's best to use math-oriented environments for math material and text-oriented environments for pure text material. E.g., in the example below I use a center environment rather than display-math to center the material horizontally, a tabular environment to typeset the poem, and explicit \left\{ and \right\} directives to create left- and right-hand curly braces. This minimizes the reliance on math mode.

The first example shows the result of using the default value of \tabcolsep; the second example makes do with a much smaller value of this parameter.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{lmodern}
\begin{document}
\begin{center}
$\left\{ \begin{tabular}{c} Of what nacion.\\ Of what countrée.\\ Of what auncetours.\\ Of what parentes. \end{tabular} \right\}$
\end{center}

%% Second version, with less whitespace on either side of the poem.
%% (The default value of \tabcolsep is 6pt.)

\begin{center}
\setlength\tabcolsep{1pt}
$\left\{ \begin{tabular}{c} Of what nacion.\\ Of what countrée.\\ Of what auncetours.\\ Of what parentes. \end{tabular} \right\}$
\end{center}
\end{document}

• Thanks. I don't want it centered, so do I write \begin{tabular}{r}? – Guillaume Coatalen Jun 1 '14 at 18:15
• I had assumed you wanted the material centered because you were using a Bmatrix environment. If you want the lines of the poem to be left-justified (aka raggedright), use {tabular}{l}; if you want the lines right-justified, use {tabular}{r}. – Mico Jun 1 '14 at 18:56

This is what I did:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\begin{document}

$$\begin{bmatrix} \text{Of what nacion.}\\ \text{Of what countrée.}\\ \text{Of what auncetours.}\\ \text{Of what parentes.} \end{bmatrix}$$

\end{document}


I only added the envorinment equation, enclosing the bmatix one.

• see egreg's comment under the question. That's why it works independent from equation environment. – percusse Jun 1 '14 at 15:51

The stackengine package by default, stacks text (one needs to invoke \stackMath to stack math, or else use math delimiters in the stack). Thus, you can achieve it this way, without the need for \text{...}. The alignment of the stack (here left) is specified in the optional argument of the \Centerstack.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[usestackEOL]{stackengine}
\begin{document}
$\left\{ \Centerstack[l]{Of what nacion.\\Of what countrée.\\Of what auncetours.\\Of what parentes.} \right\}$
\end{document}